72

ESQUIRE

Mayhem at the Box Office

Unless something is done soon, a lot

of kids playing race-horse basketball

will have heart disease in later life

ASKETBALL, as played today, is wrecking
the future health of thousands of our
youngsters!

What was once a recreational pastime has
been ‘‘needled’”’ into a frenzy of harmful
action through radical rule changes in the
past few years.

High school and college athletes are being
‘burned out’’ by the fastest, most exhausting
and most nerve-wracking sport since ancient
gladiators were tossed in to joust with fero-
cious lions and tigers.

Hard words, my friends?

Perhaps.

But watch the heart-disease curve go up
and up—despite reports whitewashing basket-
ball as it is now played. And the victims, un-
less something is done about it soon, will
come in large numbers from the youngsters
now cavorting on the nation’s hardwood floors.

In the year preceding his death, Dr. James
A. Naismith, originator of the sport, gave up
almost completely attending games. Asked
the reason, he shook his head sadly and re-
plied:

“This isn’t basketball the way I used to
know it. I devised a game for players. I
wanted it to be an interesting, healthful com-
petition. And it was, up to a few years ago.
Now the spectators have taken it over and
the rules have been changed so that the game
is played for their benefit. No one seems to
give a thought any more to the boys or their

by LEO FISCHER

= SPORTS «

health. I guess they just want to draw crowds.
This isn’t my game of basketball.”

And he is right. About the only similarity
between basketball of today and half a dozen
years ago is reminiscent of the feud which
once raged between Doe Meanwell at Wis-
consin and Ward Lambert at Purdue. Each
collected royalties on a certain type of ball
and there was always a squabble about which
was to be used when they met. Once, before
a game, Meanwell wired Lambert

‘‘What kind of a ball are you going to use
Friday?”’

Lambert wired back:

‘A nice, big round one!”’

It’s still a nice, big round ball that they’re
using in the game—but the other rules have
undergone amazing alterations.

From the time Dr. Naismith hung up those
historic peach baskets in 1891 up to a few
years ago, players had the entire floor in
which to roam or rest. Then it was decided
that there was too much resting and not
enough roaming—particularly after a couple
of Illinois high school teams played a 1 to 0
game and Wisconsin won a Big Ten confer-
ence contest by a score of approximately 12
to 9. There was also a game on the Pacific
Coast where players on one side held the ball
for fifteen minutes while their opponents read
newspapers and the crowd jeered.

Instead of considering these as isolated
freak incidents, the rules committee began

 

*‘He maintains a terrific speed till the end—then he tires a bit’’

to view with alarm, and proceeded to speed
matters up. It decreed that a line should be
drawn through the center of the playing
floor. It decreed further that a player obtain-
ing the ball in the half farthest from his own
basket had to get the hell out of there within
ten seconds.

Jesse Owens can run a hundred yards in
ten seconds quite easily, but after all it isn’t
much space on a stop watch. You have to
hustle to get across that line. And thus was
taken Step No. 1 in the transition of basket-
ball.

Three years ago it was decided to inject
another shot of vinegar into the game. Fol-
lowing agitation from the Pacifie Coast, the
rules committee voted the sport’s most radical
change—elimination of the center jump.
Those last five words on paper seem harm-
less, but their effect was to do away with the
twenty or thirty second break between the
scoring of a basket and the time the ball was
again put in play by the two centers jumping
for it in mid-court.

As a result, basketball now is sustained
motion, except for an occasional injury or ex-
haustion time out. Play is practically contin-
uous. As soon as the ball whips through the
net, it is grabbed by a man from the other
side and put into play, while players on the
team which has scored sweep like tornadoes
for the opposite end of the floor to take up
defensive positions.

Certainly, it’s a swell game to watch. We
love it. So do the thousands of others who
jam into gymnasiums, field houses and indoor
stadia to watch the boys run themselves
ragged scoring points and giving thrills to the
cash customers. :

Nat Holman, famous coach of New York’s
City College and one of the greatest players
of all time, sounds the keynote of the modern
game with this observation:

‘‘Basketball is a spectator’s sport. Its re-
cent tremendous growth in popularity is clear
evidence of that. We must keep it a sport of
action and color to retain the publie’s fancy.”’

But what about the players?

Experiments prove that the abolition of the
center jump, plus other changes, have added
seven to ten more minutes of actual playing
time.

The ball is rocketing back and forth for
about thirty-eight minutes out of a possible
forty in the average college game. Football,
with all its hipper-dipper and speed-up, is
cold molasses in comparison. Fifteen minutes
of slam-bang play is about all in the average
college game, careful timing reveals. And that
is sixty minutes of play.

Cage scores have skyrockets. Not long ago
at New Orleans, Loyola and Centenary
played a game which the latter won, 78 to 72,

Continued on page 158